The Spy Bugged Me

I spy with my little eye, something that begins with the letter “S.” That’s right, scandal. As Edward Snowden nestles up in Moscow using his own father as a media battering ram, and Julian Assange is holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy launching vain campaigns to run as an Australian senator whilst fighting extradition to Sweden on charges of sexual assault (what a model defender of progressive transparency), a more traditional source of government scandal flexed its dusty muscles: the press.

It was France’s “Le Monde” who revealed that the NSA has indeed been spying on French nationals without the consent of the French government. There were also accusations that they tapped the phones of leading French diplomats which would go against every known notion of immunity and international respect. It was then followed by the “Spiegel” saying that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone was bugged since 2002. There has of course been loads of recent outrage over the extent of the NSA’s activities within the USA, but now that it has been snooping and stealing information across borders and, more excruciatingly, across the borders of its allies, the scandal has reached a whole new level.

In all honesty, however, it comes as no great surprise that millions of French, Mexican, Argentinian and German phone calls may be being recorded by the defender of the Land of the Free without any authorization. As the NSA says itself, they do nothing which others countries don’t already do. There is a double-edged sword dangling in the midst of all this: either what the NSA says is true and they are just the worst at being intelligently secretive or they are lying and the NSA is miles deep in what the French call merde. Either way it paints are rather disappointing picture of one of the world’s supposedly more effective intelligence services and of the U.S. defense project in general.

I think few people would have a problem with an effective government that compromises individual privacy in the interest of some ulterior good — say preventing the creation of a violent terrorist cell. But when that so-called effective government is better equipped to steal your keystrokes during your next browsing session than to provide you with comprehensive medical care were you to suffer an actual stroke, then I think you have a problem. And when you extrapolate the problem onto the international scene — that is the nature of this column after all — then you see a super-power better prepared to spy on the citizens of fellow democratic states than to defend the interests of those still oppressed by non-democratic ones.

If the allegations are true and the NSA has indeed been spying on both civilians, diplomatic officials, and politicians, then the U.S. will lose further credibility on the international stage. One cannot pretend to be a bastion of freedom whilst undertaking such practices, especially when they are done so stupidly.

If it really is in the U.S. national interest to risk a huge amount of its international prestige, then it should really be stealthier with its operations. There is no doubt that other powerful countries have similar operations; I just believe that the difference is that they don’t get caught whilst at it. In short, I don’t mind if the NSA knows everything that some random French guy, your sister or I do or talk about. I just wish they were better at keeping their own operations secure and secret.